Are your holiday decorations harboring pests?
With the holiday season just around the corner, it’s time to bring out your decorations from years gone by. However, whether they were stored in your New Jersey attic, basement, or somewhere else, there may be a chance that pests have found their way in. With the combination of cold weather and the materials decorations are stored in, it’s safe to assume pests may be in your holiday decorations.
Where to Store Your Holiday Decorations
The most effective thing you can do to prevent an infestation is to keep your holiday decorations in a sealed, secure place where you visit often and pests do not feel safe nesting. Use sealable plastic bins instead of cardboard boxes. The most common pests that take shelter inside decorations are mice, rats, spiders, and cockroaches. If you want to keep them out, you should secure the rest of your house for the winter. If they can’t get inside your home in the first place, they won’t be able to get inside your decorations.
Tips to prevent pests from getting inside your NJ home
To help prevent pests from entering your home and taking up residence in your storage areas or holiday decorations, try the following tips:
- Check weather stripping around doors and windows. Replace as necessary.
- Check window screens for rips or tears, and repair or replace as necessary.
- Seal around utility pipes where they enter the home.
- Seal around electrical wires where they enter the home.
- Don’t store firewood in the house.
- Keep leaves and other debris away from the side of your home.
- Keep tree branches and bushes trimmed away from your home.
Why pests choose decorations
Most pests make their homes in places that are not disturbed very often, as it means they can stay safe for a longer period. Unfortunately, this makes your holiday decorations a prime spot to take shelter, as they’re only moved for a short time once a year. Not only that, but the things used to pack decorations, (cardboard boxes, tissue, packing peanuts, newspaper, etc.) are perfect nesting materials for all types of pests. The incoming cold weather will make it worse too, as there are many pests looking for a warm place to stay during the winter.
Open holiday decorations with caution
If you keep your decorations somewhere that you don’t visit often, such as in the attic or basement, it’s a good idea to take some precautionary measures to prevent bites and/or pests from getting loose inside your home. Taking the box outside is the best thing you can do as you don’t want any pests getting out and scurrying around inside your house. Shaking the box around a bit can help alert you to any pests inside a box before you open it.
If pests are ruining your holiday season by infesting your decorations, contact the professionals at Arrow Pest Control. We will keep your New Jersey home free from winter pests.
Home Protection Program
Service consists of the elimination of your current pest or rodent problem, complemented by both interior and exterior year-round protection of your home, which is inclusive of three seasonal visits. The program covers your entire property including attics, mailboxes, playsets, sheds, and fences.
Pests targeted with Arrow’s Home Protection Plan services include ants (excluding carpenter ants, pharaoh ants and acrobatic), bees, boxelder bugs, carpenter bees, carpet beetles, centipedes, cicada killers, clover mites, crickets, digger bees, earwigs, fabric & paper pests, fleas (inside only), ground beetles, hornets, mice, pillbugs, millipedes, rats, roaches, silverfish, sowbugs, spiders, springtails, stored product pests, and wasps.
*If you have a pool house that requires service, pricing would increase based upon the size of the structure.
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